What’s in a name?

Why the name Don’t Think, Check!? I wanted to have a name that meant something and was memorable if not provocative.

Daniel J. Boorstin has been quoted as saying “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” In a similar vein, I am uncomfortable when people say anything remotely like “I think it will work!”

Assuming the statement is not a thoughtless throwaway, what does it mean to use the word think? Is the statement simply casual language that actually means it will definitely work because I have seen or done it many times before? Or, is the person making such a statement simply making assumptions?

Working on the theory that people mean what they say, a theory not always correlated closely with reality, then I would prefer people to say “it will work,” or better yet, “it will work because …”

So there you have it, the background behind the name, the idea, the ideal, and the practice, because to quote Peter F. Drucker “There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.”